Ode to Our Loved Ones Lost
You are loved and you’re not alone.
As we enter into the holiday season, spend it as YOU see fit and honor loved ones lost, in your own special way.
The holidays definitely can stir up a ton of mixed emotions that can put you in a slump. It’s a very blah/grey space to exist in.
However, sometimes we compound the sorrow we feel through our efforts to escape feeling anything at all through business or isolation. The pain of exhaustion, oblivion, or intoxication we deem easier to bear than the pain of facing and embracing our loss.
There is also guilt associated with enjoying your holiday season in the absence of our loved one. In our minds and hearts, our enjoyment somehow equates to us “forgetting” and evokes the pain associated with thoughts and feelings of “moving on.” Understand that you can never move past the precious moments and experiences shared with loved ones. Consider this, replace the thought and feeling of “moving on” with “carrying with.” Remember our loved ones now live through us. Their memories, dreams, and legacy are kept alive via our shared memories and moments with them.
Lately, I’ve missed my Mommy Dearest more than ever! December holds much joy and pain for my family and her empty chair still saddens my heart. However, I’m learning that sometimes, I need to allow myself to exist in mourning momentarily instead of constantly ignoring or trying to escape these thoughts and feelings. They are real, they are my heart and minds way of honoring her memory and reminding me that I haven’t forgotten her and she lives on, in and through me.
Recently, I’ve begun to create space to honor her memory and embrace the pain of having to live life and continue to enjoy experiences in her absence. I haven’t always been strong enough to look at her photo, but I am now and beautiful photos of her and our family now rest on my office desk. I listen to songs that she and I shared and allow tears to fall down my cheeks. My tears are full of love for my Mother, and I need them to flow to remind me that she is still very much a part of my life. I may not be able to hear her voice or feel her touch, but her words, her teachings, her advice, her moral, her legacy, I carry with me everyday and I am now graced with the precious opportunity to now transfer these precious moments and memories to my children.
So laugh, cry, write, paint, read, and rest with your favorite memory, but whatever you do, don’t ever let it go. Purpose to carry it with you always and to gift those moments to future generations.
Gwendolyn J. Jones 